If there was ever any doubt of mobile’s essential role to retail success, the most recent holiday shopping season should put that to bed. Last year, more than 40% of all Cyber Monday sales came from mobile devices. In fact, Amazon stated that almost 60% of its customers shopped via mobile during the 2014 holiday season, with total U.S. sales from its app doubling from 2013.

At this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, established players such as IBM and Qualcomm and nimble startups including Imersivo and Compass.to showed off innovations in augmented reality, mobile payments, clienteling, and more, offering tools for employee empowerment, data-driven decision-making, true omnichanneling retailing, and beyond.

Last week, Oracle hosted its second annual Oracle Industry Connect conference in Washington, D.C. This seat of world power was an appropriate setting for a two-day summit explaining how retailers can use technology to obtain better control of every aspect of their enterprises.

We are or should be familiar with the Americans with Disabilities Act’s (“ADA”) requirements for accommodating the physically disabled. Wheelchair ramps, handicap stalls, handicap parking, lifts, and other items designed to assist the physically disabled are commonplace. However, the ADA is much broader than this, and the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the courts are focusing on making the internet more accessible for the visually impaired.

An overwhelming majority (70%) of consumers around the globe say that the best way retailers can add value to their shopping experience is to provide easy access to information about their products and services, both online and in stores.

In my 20-plus year career working with retailers, when sales do not meet forecasted expectations, gas prices and the weather are always the factors retailers point to for explanation. Oil prices are low and are expected to remain so for the next two quarters, so why haven’t we seen robust spending?

For retailers, it’s now no longer a matter of “if” you will be compromised by a cyberattack, but “when” you will be. But they can mitigate the impact of attacks now and in the future by preparing a response plan with policy-based automation.

While California’s verdant Central Valley is the fastest growing area in the state, the entire population of the 22,500-square-mile region is a comparatively modest 6.5 million people — Los Angeles County alone boasts over 50% more residents. However, this single region, which is responsible for producing 25% of all of the food consumed in the United States, is expected to absorb many of the 10 million people the state is projected to grow by over the next few decades. It is also home to one of the most ambitious and distinctive new developments in modern American history: Quay Valley.

As most retailers can attest, perceived inconsistencies between the online and offline worlds can lead to customer dissatisfaction and ultimately lost sales. Consumers believe it’s not possible to receive the same promotion or rebate in-store as online.

These days, retailers spend a lot of time obsessing over letters, specifically CAC and CLV. Most know these terms as shorthand for customer acquisition cost and customer lifetime value. Both are key concepts and incredibly important metrics if you operate a retail business.

For the past two months, New England has been dealing with an historically snowy, cold winter. As a lifelong resident of the region, I have had time to reflect on a few technology-related lessons retailers can take from my experience as a snowbound consumer.

The onset of 2015 marked a huge change in shipping costs, and as a result retailers are struggling to find ways to maintain their bottom lines. As of Jan. 1, packages are now being evaluated by their “dimensional weight,” or volume, instead of determining price by weight alone. Experts say that the when combined with other annual rate hikes and surcharges, the resulting average rate increases will be as high as 30% or more.

You’ve undoubtedly heard about the Internet of Things (IoT) and you might think that it’s all about wearables and energy savings. You might conclude that it doesn’t have much to do with your retail business.

We are in the midst of a retail boom in Brooklyn and it is only going to get bigger. Over the past two years, retail has grown significantly in Brooklyn, the fourth largest “city” in the U.S., with the number of corridors (streets with a notable retail presence and average rents of at least $35 per square foot) nearly doubling since 2013. According to CPEX’s 2015 Brooklyn Retail Report, the number of active retail corridors grew from 67 in 2013 to 121 in 2015, an increase of over 80%.

Shopping cart abandonment is a problem that costs retailers nearly $20 billion each year, according to a study by SurePayroll. If you’re putting effort into attracting customers and enticing them with products they’d like to buy, only to have them stop short of the finish line, you’re leaving money and opportunities for repeat business on the table.

Well-stocked shelves and falling sales is a dilemma faced by many retailers today. New technology advancements such as mobile discount apps are the latest threat to grocery retail sales. Many people simply complete their grocery shopping from the convenience of their own home.

With the Affordable Care Act, employers’ new reality is here, right now — and contrasts starkly with the past: Retailers that run payroll, time and attendance, scheduling, and benefits administration the way they used to will probably run afoul of the Employer Mandate, also known as “Play or Pay.”

Mobile was all the rage during the 2014 holiday buying season. But the mobile buzz of late hasn’t just been about mobile purchasing. More consumers are now retail deal-hunting by mobile than in previous years – creating an entirely new paradigm for handheld devices as it relates to information gathering and comparative shopping, versus the act of completing an actual purchase.

If it hasn't done so already, the consumer experience will undoubtedly include omnichannel shopping, mobile, and social media as part of what consumers do naturally. Based on this inevitable evolution of how customers engage with retailers, here are seven retail “megatrends” which will become reality by 2020.

The words “raising rates” are enough to elicit a face-in-palms reaction from any online retailer – especially when it comes to small parcel shipping. Yet, a different reaction may be in order as the United States Postal Service announces its intent to raise rates later this year.

First the bad news: The chronic congestion tying the West Coast ports in knots is on track to cost U.S. retailers some $7 billion this year, and losses could total nearly $37 billion by the end of 2016.

Most readers would agree that Internet brand retailing is all about maximizing traffic to a given site, converting site visits to sales and getting buyers to come back and buy more. That’s one of the paybacks on the hefty investments they make in online marketing.

Solutions Spotlight

To support consumers’ omnichannel shopping behaviors, product information, inventory availability, and customer profile and order information must be current and available throughout the enterprise to enable real-time visibility. In this white paper, you'll learn all about the new demands of a harmonized shopping experience; the new generation of network-centric information systems with access to rich information; and the perceived value of new store-level technology.

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